#oneaday, Day 12: Welcome Home

[Disregard the above. It is nothing to do with the below. This is a short piece of fiction that I promised I’d write. It is late and I have been out all evening. But this is no excuse to not write something. So here is… something. I feel I should not have bothered with this disclaimer as it probably diminshes the atmosphere. Still, it separates the prose below from the cartoon about a man getting his penis out above. Which is, I suppose, a good thing. Now. Shut up and read.]

He sat in the chair by the big windows that looked out over the pristine courtyard below. The chair was comfy, his apartment was immaculate and the lush foliage down below looked completely perfect. If there were such a thing as Paradise, this planet was surely as close to it as Man was ever supposed to get.

He stood and walked solemnly up to the window pane, gently sliding it open with his free hand and letting the cool, clean air of this new world flow in through the gap, filling his lungs with purity.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. This was a far cry from the overcrowded, polluted atmosphere that was the Earth he left behind. For a brief moment, he wondered what state the planet was in after their long voyage, but the image soon faded, and the darkness started closing in. He opened his eyes to escape it, if only for a moment.

I should be happy, he thought. This should be the happiest moment of my life. I am part of history. Never again will anyone get the chance to do what I am doing right now. A virgin world that was ripe for colonisation, prepared for Man’s arrival by the machines and now inhabited by the first humans ever to step forward and volunteer themselves to live permanently away from Mother Earth? There are people who would kill for that opportunity—there were people who killed for that opportunity—but there was no happiness here, no pride. Nothing could erase the pain he felt.

Everyone knew the risks when they signed up. The stasis chambers had been successful in small-scale, short-term laboratory tests, but all the colonists knew that they were really test subjects for use of the chambers on a voyage of many years in length. The potential rewards outweighed the risks for many participants in the program, most of whom were unemployed, or living in the dirtiest, most run-down areas of the cramped, overcrowded cities. The chance of a new life on a virgin Utopia was too good to pass up, even if it meant relying on an unproven technology.

He recalled the last time he had seen her before the voyage began. As husband and wife, their pods had been next to each other, so they had the chance to be together right up until the last moment.

“Sweet dreams,” she had said to him, kissing him lightly on the lips and touching his nose playfully with her fingertip. “We’ll be in our new home before you know it.”

He had smiled at her, held her close and kissed her back, and gazed into her eyes as she lay back into her pod, the Space Corps officer closing the lid, ready for her journey into the unknown. She had blown him a kiss just before the lid had clicked shut.

Smiling, he lay back into his own pod, closing his eyes and picturing her face. The sight of her always brought him comfort. He knew that wherever she was, that was home. And the thought of starting a new life with her on this exciting, unknown new world that they’d heard so much about on the NewsWire—that was a thought that had kept him going. The knowledge that they’d be escaping the constant struggle to survive in post-War London. The fact that they’d be able to start a family without having to deal with the bureaucracy of the Overpopulation Act of 2342. It felt like their life was starting again, like they were being given a second chance, and one which wasn’t doomed from the outset.

He felt the cool air of the pod bay stop caressing his face, and he heard the “click” of the lid closing. He opened his eyes, and all was darkness. It was beginning, and he knew that this would be the last memory he would be having for a while. He closed his eyes again and pictured her face smiling at him; those beautiful blue eyes, those luscious, kissable lips that he could never resist, the cute dimples on her cheeks when she grinned.

Then, nothingness, like a sudden and involuntary sleep. He had no idea how much time passed between the complete loss of all his senses and the moment he became aware again, hearing the “click” of the pod unlocking and seeing the lid open into the darkened bay.

He had known as soon as he saw the face of the Space Corps officer opening his lid that something was wrong.

“What is it?” he said, his voice croaking. “What is it?” he said again, louder this time. The officer said nothing, but clearly looked worried.

He braced himself against the sides of the pod and hauled himself to his feet. The lights of the bay had been lowered so as not to dazzle the awakening colonists, but he still felt the need to squint as he stepped out into the cold air. The officer offered him help in getting to his feet, but he brushed it aside, looking over to that all important pod next to his own. Her pod.

It was still closed. The lid was still firmly atop it, even though it seemed that most of the other colonists were now waking up, starting to mill about and speak to one another hesitantly. He knew that something was very wrong, and he turned to the officer again.

“Tell me,” he hissed. “Why haven’t you woken her up?”

Footsteps behind him. The sound of his approach—the man who would say the words that would change his life forever. The sound of the shoes clanking on the metal floor got closer and closer, then stopped.

“I’m afraid we have some bad news,” came a voice from behind him. He felt a hand on his shoulder, but he was already starting to feel dizzy, nauseous and afraid. He turned around to face the source of the voice and found himself looking at a short man in a white lab coat, a messy mop of grey hair atop his head, a grim expression on his face.

He could barely form words. He didn’t want to ask the question, but it came out almost involuntarily.

“What… what happened?” he asked, his voice quavering. The extremities of his vision seemed to blur, and his head was pounding. He couldn’t take not knowing any more, whatever this bad news was.

“I’m sorry,” said the grey-haired man. “But your wife… she didn’t survive the voyage.”

He let out a loud cry, the support of his legs gave out, and he collapsed to his knees. He stared straight ahead, the man’s words echoing around his mind, over and over again. “She didn’t survive the voyage.” So cold. So clinical. And over there, in the pod that had become her coffin, there she was.

There was a long silence. The other colonists milling around the bay had stopped, watching this strange scene unfold in front of them. A few of them looked like they’d figured out what was happening, some of them gesturing to the closed pod and whispering to one another, but the low buzz of conversation seemed to have ceased.

He closed his eyes, tears running silently down his cheeks, and he breathed deeply in a vain attempt to compose himself. Opening his eyes again and looking to the grey-haired man through his distorted, tear-filled vision, he spoke uneasily.

“Can… Can I… see…”

The grey-haired man stroked his chin and looked solemnly at him.

“If you wish,” he said. “However, I feel I should warn you that the contents of that pod… may not be how you wish to remember your wife.”

He staggered to his feet, tears still running down his face, and walked slowly over to the pod.

“Show me,” he growled. The grey-haired man nodded to the officer, who looked very uncomfortable, but silently walked over to the side of the pod, pressed a button and started to open the lid.

Instantly, he knew that his wife was gone. He turned away in disgust at that which he had but glimpsed. She had clearly been dead for a very long time, and that was not how he wanted to remember her. The grey-haired man had been right. He couldn’t sully the memory of her beautiful face with what she had become thanks to the failure of technology.

But it was too late. It had been but a glimpse, but it was already seared into his memory. And even now, standing here, breathing in the crisp, cool air of this virgin planet, he could not be happy. His new beginning had been cut short by cruel Fate.

As he raised the barrel of the gun to his temple, he closed his eyes and whispered one simple phrase, one which he had hoped he would be saying for the rest of his life.

“I love you.”